BUILDING STRONG FOUNDATIONS
FOR LIFELONG LEARNERS

Not overshadowed by high school, early education is our focus. Our facilities, resources, programs, and advanced, research-based curriculum are designed specifically for young learners through the guidance of caring, expert teachers. Our students are explorers, critical thinkers, and leaders, and our graduates leave confident, well-prepared for their chosen high schools and beyond.

BUILDING STRONG FOUNDATIONS
FOR LIFELONG LEARNERS

Not overshadowed by high school, early education is our focus. Our facilities, resources, programs, and advanced, research-based curriculum are designed specifically for young learners through the guidance of caring, expert teachers. Our students are explorers, critical thinkers, and leaders, and our graduates leave confident, well-prepared for their chosen high schools and beyond.

MIDDLE SCHOOL

BEHIND THE SCENES AT CONGRESSIONAL SCHOOL

Click an image to scroll through current stories around campus and to read their full captions.

Love was in the air at the preschool Love Shack Cafe this week. Parents transformed the Little School cafeteria into a bustling restaurant, complete with menus and fabulous decorations—the room was bursting with color! After their lunch, which was served by parents, preschool students used play money to pay for their meal at the cash register.

Patcraft Commercial Carpet and Flooring designated Congressional School a “School of the Future” in 2018 and awarded us a $1,000 check this week. Patcraft sought submissions from a national pool of schools. We were 1 of 3 schools to win and the only private school.

Research skills continue to develop in lower school as students embark on new projects. 3rd grade presented their discoveries about southeastern states. We are proud of how they worked together in teams to delegate work—an equally important ability!

Let the debates begin! Should police officers wear cameras? Should schools require standardized testing? 8th grade speech and debate class researched, formed arguments, and brought their cases to the class to be debated in front of peers and judges.

1st and 2nd grades were looking for inspiration in famous artists—painting the world like Clementine Hunter and constructing pieces to decorate like Tyree Guyton and his Heidelberg Project. We all need a little inspiration sometimes!

During their science series on the nine major phyla of the kingdom animalia, 7th grade students scouted locations around campus for a trail camera. They mapped the campus looking for footprints, antler rubs, and other animal signs.

Ms. Mankar and Ms. Fitzpatrick teamed up to give students an opportunity to combine science research and visual communication. 6th grade students studied climate change in Ms. Mankar’s class, they did research, and then graphed the data. They worked in art class to turn their graphs into artwork that conveys their findings. Finished projects are displayed in the Big School lobby!

On the students' days off this week, our auxiliary program offered optional child care. Preschool through kindergarten spent a fun day of activities, games and craft projects on campus while 1st - 8th grades ventured out to the new St. James Athletic Center and Disney on Ice!

Congratulations to not one but TWO of our expert teachers for being published in The Virginia Association of Independent School's Winter Magazine! Maura Rice, Jr. Kindergarten, and Evie Hinrichs, Grade 2, both wrote articles about active learning in their classrooms.

Four Hugs A Day is the minimum in the Fireflies class. The friends had fun singing this classic song to help them practice counting to four. As they sang, they used their fingers to reinforce the counting steps as prompted by the song…Step one, look them right in the eye…Step two, nose to nose…Step three, reach your arms…Step four, you can't do any harm. They did a great job following the directions.

4th grade had another special visitor today. Mr. MacNair, a 1st and 4th grade parent, came in dressed in Colonial garb to do a read aloud about what Colonial life may have been like in Virginia. Thanks for visiting and bringing learning to life, Mr. MacNair!

For the past four years, our school has kicked off the new year with a Top 10 Video featuring our school's highlights from the previous year. This past fall, we submitted our 2017 Top 10 video and we won a Bronze Brilliance Award from InspirED in the Holiday Video category!

The ability to confidently present to an audience is a quality we strive to foster in our students. 5th grade speech class is learning about verbal and non-verbal techniques. To enhance their learning, they are evaluating speeches recorded from Mr. Bowley's old speech classes, rating the techniques used, and presenting their findings.

On Music Share Days in kindergarten, students are invited to share something musical with the class…a song, play an instrument, a dance, written music, and more. We want them to find & share the ways they personally love & connect to the arts!

Preschool students in Mrs. Welty and Mrs. Collins' class enjoyed a physics lesson this week. They created a pyramid of plastic cups and used a home-made catapult to lob different materials toward the cups to see which materials traveled the farthest. They used cotton balls, Styrofoam balls, and golf balls and examined how far each traveled based on its density and weight.

1st grade took a trip to the Children's Science Center Lab and rotated through 4 different stations exploring STEM activities. We love using the resources not only on our campus, but in our community as well!

Dan Huynh ’15 stopped by our campus last week for a surprise visit. He’s currently a senior at St. Albans School and is now deciding whether he will accept his admission offer to Yale or enter the Naval Academy after graduation.

Mrs. Fry's 1st grade math class this week was working on subtraction by deconstructing numbers. When not working in small groups with our math specialist, Dr. Ross, students had iPad time using those same skills in math apps.

To build our middle school community, our Student Council organizes 3 middle school hang outs to take place once per trimester. Last Friday night they had their winter "Chill Out."

If you were in the Big School on Thursday morning, you would have seen 2nd graders on all 3 floors in search of arrays—arrangements of objects, pictures, or numbers in columns and rows. They discovered all kinds of examples and then came together to share their findings!

To wrap up their unit, 3rd grade hosted a reading event and invited other grades to attend. They shared their original fairy tale or fantasy stories and visitors had the chance to leave positive feedback on sheets at each table 🙂

It feels like we highlight music class with our littlest friends a lot, but just look how cute our Busy Bees are playing their drums! They've grown so much in the past 5 months. It's such a pleasure to be a part of their development!

Students in 4th - 8th grades participated in the National Geographic Bee, and after an impressive first round, 10 students took part in the final school-level competition today. Congratulations to Tate '20 for being our school champion and to Julia '19 for being runner-up!

Ms. Ginnetti, school counselor, provides opportunities for personal reflection in students. This week she met with 4th grade for their second Growth Mindset lesson.

Happy Lunar New Year! Coach Kim held a special celebration where she explained the Lunar New Year, showed her kindergarten - 2nd grade students traditional Korean dress, and even taught them the traditional Korean New Year greeting.

What better way to apply speed, velocity, and acceleration knowledge than by engineering ramps? Using a marble or hotwheels car, 8th grade students must calculate speed at 4 locations to determine acceleration at any given point.

Organization saves time and stress. Dr. Moore, our Director of Learning Center, met with 5th grade advisories this morning to discuss ways students can become more organized—at home, at school, and on the computer.

Innovation Evening was a fantastic opportunity for parents and students to spend time together while creating, designing, and engineering. Plus, parents got a peek into what innovation looks like around school. Catapults were launching, parachutes were floating, towers were growing, and robots were roaming!

We love having guest speakers in our classes to bring knowledge and new perspective to our students. This week it was an honor to welcome Kate and Anna’s grandfather and 18th Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, General T. Michael Moseley, USAF Retired. General Moseley shared his insights with our 6th graders regarding the work he is doing to develop a 21st century model community for displaced persons in Northern Iraq.

This week during flex period, kindergarten - 2nd grade came together to learn about Ashley Bryan and his career as an author and illustrator, read his book "Beautiful Blackbird," and became authors and illustrators for themselves!

Alka Ghandi

Current Parent

"My twins have been at Congressional since they were 2 years old.Now at 10 years old, they are loving it more than ever. When they weretoddlers, it was so comforting to leave them in the excellent care of thekind and enthusiastic teachers and staff in the Early Childhood Program.Now, in 4th grade, they still have excellent teachers who utilize the amazing school resources, including the huge campus, to inspire theintellectual curiosity of the students. When I pick up my kids, they areexcited, every day, to tell me about all of the things they did that day."

Emma Giovanetti

Class of 2018

"Everything stands out to me about Congressional! At my public school,only the teachers I had classes with knew my name, but here. Everyoneknows my name. Every teacher knows who I am, whether I know them ornot, which I really value. And since it is such a small school, you really getto connect with the students and teachers. I have some friendships withteachers that I have never had before, and I love it."

Lorenzo Proano

Class of 2014

"As a small community, the environment of Congressional is perfect for the variety of nationalities and cultures found in the school. Congressional cares about its students. For me, the school and camp have been like a family. The dynamics of the Congressionalstudent/camper life are what every school should strive for."

Jessica and Bruce MacNair

Current Parents

"We and our children love Congressional School. We have been with theschool for 4 years (our son is in 4th Grade and our daughter just began1st Grade). Our experience has been that it is a high quality (yet unpretentious) school with a strong sense of community, and ourchildren are receiving an extremely good education there. The class sizestend to be smaller, so the kids never lack the level of attention they needto ensure doing well and never feeling lost in the cracks."

Maggie Lavoie

Class of 2013

"Everyone made our family feel so welcome and loved. I felt so preparedfor high school, and I found that much of freshman year easy when myclassmates found it challenging."